At the train station in Katrineholm…

Blog entry 15th of January 2010

I’m waiting for my train to Oslo. It’s one hour delayed… A little bit of winter and snow, and the world stops ☺ I’ve been in Norrköping in Sweden, played Haydn with the orchestra last night. Lovely orchestra, such a warm atmosphere and I very much enjoyed playing with them and the conductor Christian Lindberg.

Since I’m just sitting here, waiting, I thought this was a perfect time for blogging a little bit. I’ve been a bit “lazy” with the writing lately, and I will try to do it better in the future ☺

Showing you some pictures from my touring the last months. Infront of the white house with my pianist, Steffen. Band session for TV-recording. Christmas concerts with the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra. In Italy, South Tyrol with Synphonic Winds.















That’s all for now,
Tine ☺

PS: Happy New Year!

BBT blog

Hi everyone,
I've written a blog entry for Borletti Buitoni Trust. Read it here if you want :-)
Best wishes, Tine

Over the sea...

Blog entry 11th of December 2009

In the air between Amsterdam and Washington
KLM flight, seat 34B

So, it’s me and Obama today. Both flying from Oslo at 10:30, both heading for Washington DC! Unfortunately I didn’t get a ride… Air force One sure would have been a nice experience, I’m sure ☺ Next time…

I am so sorry I did not get back to you on the suitcase London-Vienna matter! What a bad blogger I am… Sorry that I keep you waiting for almost a month to let you know how it went, but luckily I did get my luggage back only a little bit too late. Had a very stressful day of running around at the airport in Vienna (Sunday, everything else in the whole city was closed…), finding a dress and everything else I needed. Forever greatfull to the lovely lady from Austrian who helped me!

Wahington! Looking forward. Food being served here… Coming back to you soon…
☺ Tine

Action on the road...

Blog entry 14th and 15th of November 2009

Waiting for my Vienna flight…
Heathrow, London

So many people walking by, I love watching them. I’m just sitting here in the middle of Terminal 3 at Heathrow, waiting for my flight to Vienna to start boarding. I left Belfast this morning, along with my mother, and after some delay we were on the way to London. She’s going back home to Oslo, and I’m going on a little Austria tour. Coming home Friday. Heavy weather on Heathrow today, that’s what causing all the delays. I was supposed to be in Vienna by now, wandering around one of my favourite cities in the world! But, it seems Mr. Weather wanted it differently… I will arrive in Vienna around 23:00, and who knows when I will sleep safely in my bed at the hotel. Hopefully not too late!

Today has been quite eventful. I woke up early, and walked over to the Ulster Hall to get room were I could practise a bit before our flight. Suddenly it turns out not a single room in the building is available, and I have to go back to the hotel. Luckily a meeting room in the basement is free, and I start playing loud on my trumpet straight away (without disturbing any of the other guests, yaee!). Then, in the middle of a Clarke exercise (trumpet players will know what I mean…) the fire alarm goes of! Everyone out in the cold weather. False alarm. Back inside. Then it goes of again. People come down to my room; I don’t have to go out. It stops. It goes of again. It stops. It goes of again. Then it stops. A bit disturbing for my practising… Then this nice man, who obviously is some kind of a technician or something, knock on my door and look at the air-condition in the meeting room I’m practising in. And believe it or not, he accuses me of setting of the fire alarm! (the room was absolutely freezing when I got there, and I turned up the heating…) I was of course shocked and told him I was so very sorry, and he was very nice saying it was not a problem at all, I just had to turn of the heating from now on. I told him I would. 2 minutes later some other guys joins this nice, friendly man, they tell me it is absolutely impossible that this is my fault. They look at my trumpets with admiration and we all part as good friends (I hope…).

My mother and I had the nicest taxi driver. I couldn’t quite understand all he was saying, but he had a very good sense of humour (the Northern-Ireland dialect is some times not too easy to understand…).

Heathrow is a very large airport! Huge, and so many people. In the lounge though, it was still and I tried to do some e-mailing, but I just wasn’t in the mood. I almost forgot my cell phone in the lounge! I panicked when I couldn’t find it, but luckily they had it at the front desk.

Vienna, Hotel Ananas (yeah, that is the name of the hotel… Ananas is pineapple in Norwegian)

So, even more action! My luggage never arrived. That’s right, my big, gold, heavy suitcase with all my stuff just didn’t arrive. So what do I do? It was way past 23:00, and after a terribly long day of travelling (it seems so much longer when you arrive at your destination so much later than you had planned), I was so not in the mood for this. I talked to the nice lady at the Austrian desk and explained the situation; I really need this suitcase before the concert the night after. All my clothes are there, my straight mute (I need it for the Shostakovich), my mobile charger (I usually always have this in my handbag, but of course not today..), my everything… Hopefully my luggage will arrive tomorrow with the first flight from London to Vienna! Fingers crossed!

The day after, early in the morning.

So, I slept a little bit. Woke up, and now I have just been on the phone with another nice lady at the Austrian lost baggage service. Not good news though, they have not received any messages about my luggage. So basically no one knows were it is! She is trying her best now to contact both London and Belfast, but maybe it has been sent on the wrong flight, and then who knows were it might be?!? I really hate this…. Well, there is really nothing I can do. It is Sunday, so all the shops are closed… Just my luck.

I have to eat some breakfast now, and then the rehearsal begins at 10. Hopefully the lady from Austrian will soon call me back with some good news!
I will let you know what happens… From now on I will always have an extra toothbrush (I did get one from Austrian, but it was not so good…) and some extra make up with me in my hand luggage. Always.
Tine ;-(

Waiting for the ferry… And waiting for the plane...

Blog entry 27th and 28th of October 2009

Nordfjordeid, Norway

I am sure you’re dying to know if Laila (my agent) and I made it to St.Petersburg and Novgorod. I am therefore delighted to tell you that we did! After that little incident with Laila not reaching her flight, the rest of our little Russian adventure went without any major difficulties.

Here you can see the eldest church in Russia, it is situated in Novgorod.

On Tuesday I had a concert in Novgorod, after the concert we were invited to the best restaurant in the little town. It was inside the Kremlin (along with the concert hall) and when we arrived there with Yuri (the artistic leader of the festival, conductor and pianist) it looked like a deserted church. But once we went inside and upstairs there were a lot of people and live singing and dancing! We ate traditional Russian food, and I got ice cream, lucky me ☺

Wednesday we went to St.Petersburg. It is a good two hours drive and while Yuri drove the car I drove him nuts with reading in Russian from my “visit St.Petersburg” guide… I don’t remember so much now though, only some words. He understood everything I tried to say, it either means that I actually have some talent for Russian, or he was just trying to be polite… At the evening we went to the Marinsky and watched The Magic Flute, in Russian! My little Russian from the car didn’t help me there… Lovely singers ☺

On the right side you see The Church on Spilled Blood and under you see me in the concert hall at Sheremetev Palace.

Concert in Sheremetev Palace on Thursday. There are so many beautiful buildings and palaces in St.Petersburg, it’s a bit unbelievable, and everything is almost completely authentic from the old days. Friday was practise day and visiting a couple of tourist spots, The Church on Spilled Blood and we went to the Winter palace and Ermitage. Gala concert on Saturday. Played Grieg, it was a wonderful experience. So many great people, so warm and nice and giving. I had a great week in Russia.

Me outside the Winter Palace.


Sunday I went to Trondheim (St.Petersburg – Copenhagen – Oslo – Trondheim) and had en evening rehearsal with the Trondheim Soloists. My mother met me in Oslo and joined me for my evening in Trondheim so that I could change some of the content in my suitcase… Two and a half week and 10 concerts take a lot of different clothes and things, so it was good to be able to change some of it. Then Monday morning, at 7 o clock in the morning (way tooooo early) the bus left my hotel (my mother went home to Oslo) and soon we were on the road to Nordfjordeid. Had the first concert on our tour yesterday, so much fun! Looking forward to the rest.

Stavanger Sola Airport…

My Internet connection has been bad, so I am still writing on this same entry. Now I am sitting at the airport in Stavanger. We just arrived here from Bergen and are going to London, the plane boards in half an hour or so. It is the 28th today; yesterday we had our second concert on the tour in Bergen. At Troldhaugen, Grieg’s home, lovely place. Today the others have a free day in London, while I have some interviews to attend. My CD is being released on the UK on Monday and I am very exited. Tomorrow we have a concert in Cadogan Hall in London, Friday in Canterbury and Saturday in Leeds.

Will be back with a report from the road…
Until next time, be sure to visit the Winter palace and the Ermitage museum if you are in St.Petersburg, to see paintings by Matisse, Monet, Rembrandt and Da Vinci in real life if simply amazing.
Tine ☺

Düsseldorf Airport

Blog entry 19th of October 2009

Action already…

So, I’m back again. Never a trip without a little bit of action… My day started okay, and the checkout from the hotel and the drive to the airport was action-free. However, it all started when I arrived at the check-in counter. I was already aware that my luggage was a couple of kilos too heavy, and was of course prepared to pay a little bit extra. Düsseldorf to St.Petersburg via Stockholm, 20 euro per kg, 5 kg = 100 euro!

Security control: Full check of all my hand luggage (trumpet bag, piccolo trumpet case and handbag), some weird check of the surface of my Mac Book, full body visitation… Everything was fine, luckily I am no criminal, and I went to buy myself some breakfast. Then my manager calls me. She was supposed to meet me in Stockholm and we would fly together for St.Petersburg, but it turns out not everything goes as planned. Due to some traffic accident she arrives at Flesland airport (in Bergen, she lives there) too late for check-in of her luggage, and (even though she really tries some heavy arguing) she misses her first flight to Stockholm. Then she finds out there is no way of getting to Stockholm so that she will reach our flight to St.Petersburg. So much for my quiet breakfast… Many phone calls later she has arranged herself a new flight; she will now arrive in St.Petersburg late in the evening (travelling via Oslo and Riga…).

Hopefully we will meet tonight in St. Petersburg ☺

Here are the pictures from the last entry:

In Norway they clearly start Christmas celebrations in some stores way too early. Date: 4th of October!

And last a couple of pictures from the making of my new music video! Yes, my new CD is soon arriving, and now it is official, it is a Christmas album. I had the best tome making the album (with the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, Elise Båtnes(leader) and Isa Gericke (soprano)), and wow did we have fun making the video! This is a little taste of what’s coming. I will let you know all about it of course.

The winter is arriving

Blog entry 18th of October 2009

Düsseldorf - Germany

I am sitting at my hotel room in Düsseldorf. The TV is on, Mahler’s 1st symphony with Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel, while I write to you. I am sorry for all the time that has gone by since my last entry. My intentions has been good all the way, I really wanted to write sooner. But, here I am again.

I practically just got of stage at the Tonhalle here in Düsseldorf, concert with Mendelssohn Kammerorchester Leipzig. Very nice concert, I really enjoyed it. Tomorrow I fly for St.Petersburg, and after a couple of hours on the road I will be in Novgorod. I am on a long tour at the moment, not back home until the 3rd of November; I promise I will write to you on the road.

Some pictures from my last two months ☺

First one from the concert with the Oslo Philharmonic on the 10th of September, I did Birtwistle's Endless Parade (as I told you about in my last entry). It was SO much fun! This was a huge goal for me, and I just simply really had a great time onstage. A real kick!


Then you see me the next day at my friend Frida’s house, making pizza! So nice, that is the differences in my life, and do I love them!



Now, something weird happend to the internet connection and the uploading of pictures... But next time you will see these pictures aswell:
In Norway they clearly start Christmas celebrations in some stores way too early. Date: 4th of October!

And last a couple of pictures from the making of my new music video! Yes, my new CD is soon arriving, and now it is official, it is a Christmas album. I had the best tome making the album (with the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, Elise Båtnes(leader) and Isa Gericke (soprano)), and wow did we have fun making the video! This is a little taste of what’s coming. I will let you know all about it of course.

So, hopefully you will here from me in a couple of days (with pictures...),
Until then, enjoy life ☺
Tine

The summer is over

Blog entry 31st of August 2009

In my rehearsing room…

When the wind suddenly gets cold and wet you know that Mr. Autumn is taking over for Mrs. Summer. At least that was what I was told in kindergarten, and I still live after those funny and sweet little rhymes. Looking out of my window makes me grey. The clouds are grey, the rain is grey, the cars are grey, even the people walking by looks a little greyish to me (maybe someone should clean the windows…). It is the very last day of August, and I am enjoying a break and thinking about my summer. The break is only half an hour long, then my dear little child (my trumpet of course…) and I will start playing again. ☺

I know my writing has not been too often lately, and for that I am truly sorry. Sometimes the days fly by with the speed of a race car, suddenly a month has gone by, concerts have been played, flights have been delayed, friends have invited you for dinner, and you have become a year older. Yes, I am officially 22 years old. I even got a note in the paper, along with some politicians and TV-faces, which was a bit cool. With a picture and everything. Hopefully it will end by the third time I turn 30…

Of course you are all dying to know how my days in Italy were and I am glad to tell you that Ravello was absolutely amazing. Such a beautiful place! I will enclose some pictures!
After Ravello I played a concert in Drøbak, near Oslo, and me and Steffen (my pianist) was amazed at how many people showed up! The church was so full, and still a lot of people never came in. The audience was wonderful and I really enjoyed the concert. The Grieg-songs, Haugtussa, are so fantastic to play, I get to use all my emotions and just truly sing. I think deep down I am a wannabe-singer… After Drøbak was Oslo Grieg-festival, and then I went to Germany with Stavanger Symphony Orchestra for a festival called Musikalische Sommer Ost-Friesland. Then there was Oslo Chamber music festival, and back to Germany for Festspiele Mecklenburg Vorpommern. And last I was in a little town near Zurich, Ermatingen, for a recital with Christian Ihle Hadland. Now I have a week of before I play with the Oslo Philharmonic next week. Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Endless Parade, for the ULTIMA festival in Oslo. A contemporary music festival.

Endless Parade is a real challenge for me and I am both very excited and terrified. Or to be correct, I was terrified up until last week. I got a vision, or something, and I suddenly started to just really enjoy myself. I see it as a way of getting out a lot of hidden frustration and screaming. Who wants to spend money on a shrink when you can get it all out through the music!?!?

My half an hour break is over, time to play with my baby again ☺
Until next time, remember to clean your windows, Mr. Autumn is grey enough as he is.
Tine ☺

Italy

Blog entry 22nd of July

On my way to Rome

In the air…
My seat is 5D. It is a quite comfortable seat for someone like me, since I am quite short and small. To be honest, everything is quite short and small on this flight. That was the first thought that entered my mind when I came in to the plane: small. Very small indeed.

My pianist, Steffen, is sleeping next to me, looking unnaturally big in the small seat. Luckily I am seated near the aisle, so the claustrophobic feeling doesn’t completely take the hold of me. Flying is, if you think about it, quite crazy. We’re sitting here, around 150 people, thousands of meters up in the air, over the clouds. Sleeping, eating, talking, laughing, reading - acting as if this is the most natural thing in the world. We fly higher than the birds. What if we fall down? Lately, my old fright of flying has been slowly creeping back in to my head, and believe me when I say that this is not good when you are, and have been, on the road around 200 days this year! That is a lot of flying… Lately I have noticed that each time I get a new offer for a concert somewhere, I always think about how long the flight will be… That is scaring me a little…

Today, the captain promised us nice weather and good flying conditions. Unfortunately his words were not exactly true for the first hour. It was actually quite a lot of turbulence, but since the flight crew is so nice and informing, I never got scared. I even started to think that there is no chance of this plane falling down, it is actually totally impossible. The flight attendant spoke on behalf of the captain, telling us that we unfortunately had to fasten our seatbelts because of some turbulence. The captain was very sorry for this and had already asked the once who sit on the ground and conducts all the planes (totally forgot what they are called in English…), to give us another, less bumpy route to Rome. This simple little message from the captain assured me of our safety in a way that I have never experienced before on a plane (not like on my way home from Vietnam, 12 hours on the plane, the captain never said one word, three hours of heavy turbulence in the middle…). This simple message had me thinking that unless the motors falls of or we break a wing or something, there really is zero percent chance of us falling down, these guys actually had everything under control (probably they would have known a safe way to get us down even though the motors fell down or we broke a wing…). I hope that this nice discovery can make this little green monster of afraidness go away as quickly as it came. As long as we don’t fly over huge seas that is…(I can’t help thinking about the air France accident). But hopefully this will also disappear before I go to Washington in December.

Steffen is awake, reading a newspaper. We are on our way to Rome. It takes about three hours by plane from Oslo; I look at my watch and see that we have an hour left. Then it will be 4-5 hours left of our trip before we reach our final destination: Ravello. We are playing a concert there tomorrow at a festival. I’ve heard that this is supposed to be one of the most beautiful places on earth; you will get an update on that later! You’ll definitely hear my perfect description of me sitting in the sun with my fresh orange juice and enjoying the amazing view, as you can see my expectations are high…

I don’t have my computer with me, I write this in my little travelling book, and when I come back home I will write it in to my computer and update my blog.

I don’t know if I have told you how great it feels to be able to write a little bit on the road, and know that at least a couple of people will read it. I feel so extremely lucky that I can travel around and play, and when I can share some of my thoughts, experiences and scrabbling with you, it feels better in a strange way. My life is quite special. By special I don’t mean that it is more important or exciting than others, it is just that I am my job. Always. I never have a real vacation (even if I try), because the music is inside of me all the time. Sometimes I wish I could press the pause button, just for a little while, but at the same time I am so grateful for my music, and wouldn’t change it for anything in the world. I call it my music, no matter what I play. Because I have to fell like I own it (together with the composer of course…), if I am to tell you the story and sound sincere. Every single piece is like a story or picture, poem or sentence, shape or colour or feeling that I am describing to you when I play it. At the exact moment that I play it to you it is still mine, but then it becomes yours to keep (if you want it…)

Wow, the thoughts wonders in some very deep directions up here in the clouds… Especially when you just find out that turbulence is actually not dangerous at all.
Take care, and watch out for my description of Ravello in my next entry, be sure to have high expectations.

Until next time,
Tine ☺

Germany

Blog entry 17th of July 2009
In the air between Frankfurt and Oslo

I am SO sorry for my lack of blog writing the last months! I really don’t have a particularly good explanation or reason, I promise you it will never happen again!
Anyway, a LOT of things have happened since April (!), and for the few of you who have also checked out my Norwegian blog you probably know some of it. (I actually wrote until May in the other blog… sorry…) So, here follows a short summary of what I have been up to:

• End of April: Great days in London with the Razumovsky (check out video blog at YouTube!). Some small concerts in Norway.

• May: Had a very good week with the Oslo Philharmonic and Saraste, doing the Shostakovich concerto with Håvard Gimse on the piano. It was also a DVD production ☺ TenThing week! Always having a good time with the other girls (check out video blog on YouTube!). Celebrated Norway’s National Day. Lovely weather, really hot in my “bunad” (Norwegian National dress…) I went to some concerts (you can actually see me in the audience sometimes as well! …hehe ☺) Bergen International Festival and Hardanger musikkfest. Lovely week, if not a bit full of concerts and rehearsals, rehearsals and concerts, but that’s work, isn’t it? Hardanger must be one of the most beautiful places on earth! Look at the pictures!

• June: Three exams at school, in one day! Pedagogic first, then Norwegian music history and last my final trumpet exam. Everything went really well, and the concert (final exam) in the evening was a great experience. I had it at a café actually. A concept called “Café de Concert”, really nice, will tell you more about this concept later. That was the final exams of my Bachelor degree. Bachelor, finito, Master Diploma, here I come… ☺ I went to Berlin and played a concert in the Berlin Philharmonie with a chamber orchestra. A lot of meetings and office work this month… And then, recording! I can’t tell you exactly what it was yet, but I can assure you it was the most amazing week! Soon you will know what this mysterious project is…The end of the month I spent in Risør, at the Risør Chamber music festival. I may use the word “amazing” a lot, but this week was extremely amazing. It started with a boat ride with a small ship from Kristiansand to Risør, some of us musicians played concerts aboard. I have never played while the ground is moving before, everything has a first I guess. The week was especially nice because my mother and little sister, Amalie, had rented a house and stayed there with me. The weather was as good as it could get, and the summer feeling was complete. I met many nice people and great musicians and lovely audience. Very special atmosphere. Went home for one day before next trip…

• July: … to Bad Kissingen, and the Kissinger Sommer Festival. Third year in a row I am there, and it is always so nice to be there. Two concerts, both went really well. Already looking forward to next year, then we go there with tenThing. Home for a couple of days, editing my mysterious CD project, then Germany again. I’m going to be in Germany so much this summer I am suspecting to both think and speak fluent German by the end of August… I wish! Last weekend I went to Stuttgart, two concerts with Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra at the Mercedes Center. Playing Haydn among all the amazing cars! (look at the picture, I fell in love with this one...) I really enjoyed it ☺ Then my mother and I had a very loooooong train ride from Stuttgart to Potsdam (I think it was over 7 hours…). Potsdam was such a beautiful little city situated around 25 min (by train) outside of Berlin. We stayed there for rehearsals with Kammerakademie Potsdam and Michael Sanderling. So nice people to work with. Yesterday we went to Wiesbaden (another, not so long this time, train ride) and concert at the Rheingau Festival in the evening. It was outside at a very beautiful place called Kloster Eberbach, and we could not have been luckier with the weather. Lovely surroundings, musicians, conductor, music, audience (even bird singing!), it doesn’t get much better than that.

That was my last months and days in a short (hopefully) summary. Right now I am sitting on the plane from Frankfurt to Oslo, on my way home. I am staying there for some days before I’m back on the road. Italy is my next stop.

As this blog is my blabbing about small funny things that happens, I could tell you about the insect invasion at our hotel room in Stuttgart, the crazy shouting taxi-driver, hearing a bunch of kids singing “Fairytale” at the train from Potsdam to Wiesbaden, Hunting for the mosquitoes lookalike creatures at hour hotel room in Potsdam, walking and walking and walking in Berlin because we choose the wrong station…. There is a lot. But it would be a novel, so I will leave it up to your imagination ☺

Until next time (which will definitely not be this long!), remember to enjoy yourself, things doesn’t get better than you make them…
Tine